#writing

"But that initial, comet-blazing-across-the-sky, Big Idea is only the beginning. Each book is composed of a mosaic of thousands of little ideas, ideas that invariably come to me at two in the morning when my alarm is set for seven."

"A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends."

"Like madness is the glory of this life."

"Anything creative requires a bit of acting,and filling in blanks with imagination."

"Making a decision to write was a lot like deciding to jump into a frozen lake."

"A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid."

"[A young adult novel] ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived."

"I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love."

"Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything."

"A pen, a piece of white paper, and an idea can create a new you."

"The pages afforded glimpses into my soul where I'd hidden it, behind masks of paper and ink."

"A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty."

"Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got."

"Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up."

"Don't you know no one can escapethe power of creatures reaching outwith breath alone?"

"It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought."

"When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can."

"For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing."

"My circumstances of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the short story form."

"If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity."